Before I start going through the issues about McCain/Palin I want to write a few words about politics in general.
First off, every move that both Obama and McCain make are calculated moves. Let's not forget that they are running for the highest office in the land, they have massive campaigns, and like chess -- they are looking forward many moves to checkmate the opponent.
McCain has reasons he picked Palin and in his mind they are reasons that he thinks will help him win. But let us not think that Obama's pick wasn't selected for similar reasons. To think that one camp is being calculating and the other not is naive.
Second, there is something to be said about rhetoric. Both camps are promising the world and are trying to make the other guy look stupid. Politics is not for the faint at heart. Thus, you have to peel the onion to figure out what you think is just rhetoric because it is a campaign year and what is truth (i.e., what the candidate actually believes and what they will actually do about it).
You have to look through the political shifts and the flip-flops that candidates find themselves in because they are in an election year. You have to almost operate on instinct in certain instances and look to past actions to base your opinions.
And third, there is a lot to be said about what certain opinions and positions candidates hold. But, you have to say to yourself -- okay -- what can they actually do about that position? And what reality in the beltway will either push that position onto the country or not?
I hope that sort of gives you a feel about how my brain works and how I will cover the issues.
So much for Obama being that new hope and a different kind of politician, ehh?
Wiretapping orders approved by secret orders under the previous version of the surveillance law were set to begin expiring in August unless Congress acted. Heading into their political convention in Denver next month and on to the November Congressional elections, many Democrats were wary of handing the Republicans a potent political weapon.
The issue put Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. He had long opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in the N.S.A.’s wiretapping program, even threatening a filibuster during his run for the nomination. But on Wednesday, he ended up voting for what he called “an improved but imperfect bill” after backing a failed attempt earlier in the day to strip the immunity provision from the bill through an amendment.
I guess you can't vote with your convictions all of the time. So begins an even newer era for Obama -- that of being a true politician -- like the rest of them.
Good plan. Go with something that the left criticized with GW in the hopes of winning over more of the right. Kind of sounds like a true politician, doesn't it?
Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest aggressive reach for voters who usually vote Republican.
Gag me with a spoon. I always thought Bush pushing the faith-based program thing was wrong. Now Obama wants to "expand" them.
Funny how atheists can find their vote for Obama because of his speeches that speak of reaching out to non-believers. Yet from my perspective, he isn't changing any policies from his predecessor. He isn't talking about separating church and state by "expanding" these programs. He is talking about using taxpayer money to fund these programs.
Also, all I think about when I read this news piece are all of the liberals who were writing that Obama is a different kind of politician pushing his hope line. This just continues to confirm that he is just a politician like all of them -- looking for votes and walking the line. There is nothing new here.
Balloon. Pop.
All I can do is shake my head and say... wow. (via Hugh Hewitt)
Another reason why I am an atheist.
Update: According to Jake Tapper, Obama's campaign has already erased Pfleger from his website:
]]>Pfleger appears to have been scrubbed from the Obama campaign's page that features the testimony of faith leaders, but you can see the cached version HERE.
I keep hearing that once it is official when Clinton has dropped out of the race that the Democratic Party will have to undergo a healing process. I also keep hearing that the easy way of doing this is for Obama to make Clinton the VP on the ticket.
But the way this campaign has gone on the left side of the aisle, you really have to sense the canyon that healing process will have to cross is wide. And as Novak reports, a VP nod just ain't going to happen:
Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama.
The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.
A footnote: Support is growing in Democratic ranks for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as vice president. He would bring to the ticket maturity (66 years old), experience (six terms in Congress) and moderation (rated "A" by the National Rifle Association). He is very popular in Ohio, a state Republicans must carry to elect a president.
So the question is going to be can the Democratic Party heal? My guess: Most likely. If McCain could heal the Republican Party -- my guess is that it will happen with the Democrats.
But if this holds true...
A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
...Obama has his work cut out for him. Or it is game, set, match for McCain.
Jennifer Rubin over at Commentary Magazine has a great post about Obama and his contention that he is the "great bridge builder" and that he will be the one to lead a new era of bipartisanship. However, his record shows nothing more than just being an ideologue:
He has essentially taken up every cause of the left (from opposing confirmation of Justices Roberts and Alito to supporting a bevy of tax increases) and has been absent from any of the truly bipartisan efforts, few that they may be, since he got to Washington (e.g. the Gang of 14).
As the most liberal Senator according to National Journal, he is further from the middle of the Senate and less inclined to compromise on strict party line voting than Senator Mitch McConnell (the ninth most conservative Senator) is on the other end of the spectrum. Is someone more doctrinaire in his voting record than McConnell on the Right (and Dick Durbin and John Kerry on the Left), the best person to lead us into a new era of bipartisan co-operation?
Worse still, John McCain actually can lay claim to being a bipartisan role model, which made his primary run so problematic with the GOP base. His list of bipartisan efforts on global warming, judges, campaign finance, immigration and spending reform is long and substantitve.
Bipartisanship implies compromise. If Obama went to Washington voting on his core beliefs, then based on his record, I believe compromise runs against his core belief system. And that is fine -- but why do one thing and say another? Oh, yeah, that is what politicians do.
And then there is Iraq. And as Jennifer, again, correctly points out, Obama shows no sign of even considering the other argument on Iraq.
...Obama has shown no inclination to process new information and adjust his views accordingly. Indeed, there appears to be no new data that would persuade him that the answer to Iraq is other than: “Leave immediately.” If that is not the definition of an ideologue (or a “dogmatist” as Obama would say), I do not know what is.
So Mr. Obama, if your campaign literally runs on the personification of hope and that anything can be overcome, then when glimmers of hope are seen in Iraq, why is your first and only thought to still abandon our new ally? And if you are indeed the savior of the cluster that is Washington politics, then why didn't you put yourself out there and try to create bridges when you were there?
In my opinion, Obama is just another politician. He will not be the savior of our great Republic. And neither will McCain for that matter. But when it comes down to brass tacks, I think McCain has shown that he is willing to take on Washington politics, he has rubbed his party the wrong way in the name of bipartisanship, and he has put his personal political gain on the line with a controversial issue like Iraq.
With bipartisanship comes controversy and the creation of friction. I don't think Obama wants people to dislike him in his own party. His record clearly shows that. And maybe that is why so many Democratic politicians are jumping on his bandwagon. So don't buy into the rhetoric.
James Pethokoukis on Obama's paltry spending cut ideas.
Raise taxes and continue to spend even more. Hmm... I wonder if McCain has the same thoughts on spending?My take: In a $3 trillion federal budget, that's it, that's all the fat—just defense and some procedural changes. How about limiting discretionary spending growth to inflation minus 1 percent or such? Oh, and on the subject of taxes, don't think Obama will wait until the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire in 2010.
What!? Politicians exaggerate? And lie? Holy crap!
Here is the latest from the LA Times regarding the barbs being traded between McCain and Obama over Iraq:
Reacting Wednesday morning in Tyler, Texas, McCain taunted: "I have some news: Al Qaeda is in Iraq. . . . It's called 'Al Qaeda in Iraq.' " Some in the town-hall audience laughed.
"If we left . . . they wouldn't be establishing a base," the Arizona Republican said. "They'd be taking a country, and I'm not going to allow that to happen, my friends."
Obama responded at a rally in the sports arena at Ohio State University in Columbus. "I have some news for John McCain," the Illinois Democrat said, leaning into the crowd for emphasis. "There was no such thing as 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."
Brilliant comeback. How original.
The funny thing about this exchange is that to me McCain wins. McCain is (and has always) been the one pointing to the Bush administration with regard to the foul ups they have presided over when it came to Iraq. And when McCain points out the obvious with an invitation to tell the world what you are going to do about it -- Obama recoils to the old Bush got us into this mess line. But what he isn't saying is that his position is to leave Iraq ASAP (which in turn will allow al Qaeda Iraq to get stronger, not weaker).
McCain's plan of supporting the surge is at least a constructive plan that is geared toward helping the Iraqis.
Al Qaeda is in Iraq and blaming why they are there doesn't amount to a hill of beans of how we are going to deal with them.
I am reminded of a scene from Apollo 13 where there is a heated exchange between the two crew members over what caused the explosion on the spacecraft and Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) has to intervene:
[after a dispute has broken out between Haise and Swigert]
Jim Lovell: All right, we're not doing this, gentlemen. We are *not* doing this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems! Try to figure out how to stay alive!
And that is how I feel about Iraq. We need to solve the problem and the current surge is doing more to take on al Qaeda Iraq than what we were doing before. The more we support the Iraqis, the more they will be able to take on al Qaeda by themselves. But the damage is done, the oxygen tank has already exploded, and our *presence* in Iraq is all but assured for some time.
I would prefer for Obama to be straight with his supporters with respect to that obvious point; however, he doesn't choose to see the obvious and neither do his supporters. And for that -- I cannot support such a candidate with regards to the Iraq issue.
Do you think it is as simple as pulling out all of our troops from Iraq? Well guess what, nothing is ever that simple.
McCain is right about one thing and that is the Iraq issue will help or hinder him. And as long as it continues to work and Petraeus works his plan -- the more I think Obama will lose in November.
Huh? So I guess experience needed to be president *is* important to Obama...
"I am a believer in knowing what you are doing when applying for a job."